


here, the bleeding storm

by mnemememory



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Self-Indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 19:08:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14983640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnemememory/pseuds/mnemememory
Summary: Self reflection has never been very good for Yasha.(or; how to leave the rest of the world behind)





	here, the bleeding storm

...

...

There is so much that Yasha needs to do.

It’s getting caught in a sieve – she’s weathering herself through, but it’s not enough. No matter how hard she pushes the wire, it’s never going to be enough to get her through this. There are cross-crossed burns against her skin from hours of pounding, pounding, pounding. These are the scars that will never heal.

“I’m sorry,” she tells Molly, one day. They’re sitting outside the set-up tent, resting in the shade provided by a conveniently-placed grove of trees. The circus is pitched far enough out of town that there aren’t any noisy onlookers to chase away – especially now, at this time of day. Around them, the heat is baking the clay to rock, and the air is almost tangible in its thickness.

Molly doesn’t open his eyes, but a smile does curl up the side of his mouth. “For what?”

Yasha doesn’t respond for a few seconds, trying to think of what to say. She plans things out in her head, but when the times comes, it never seems to string together properly. Molly doesn’t mind. He waits as long as she needs to sort it out, lets her take the time out of the conversation to cobble together her side of the dialogue. Not many people make the effort for that. Yasha appreciates it more than she thinks Molly knows.

“Leaving,” she finally settles on, and even then, it’s an imperfect fit. “All the time,” she adds, and that just makes it worse.

Molly’s smile stays where it is, teeth poking out from behind his thin lips. In the glaring sunlight, his skin looks like a washed-out bruise, horns peeking out of bleached hair. Yasha squints at his tattoos, tracing the feathers of the peacock, the soft lines of his hands.

“Is that what’s been bothering you?” he says. “You haven’t been yourself, these last few days.”

 _I’m always myself_ , Yasha wants to say, but that isn’t true, so she doesn’t.

Instead, Yasha says, “A little,” as carefully as she can. There’s an invisible line she has to keep walking, even here, even now, with just Molly to stand judge. Yasha has never been particularly good at reading a room. And Molly is very good at lying.

“I don’t mind, you know,” Molly says. He talks so easily, so freely. Almost none of what he says is true, but Yasha can’t help but envy him his complete sentences. More than half the things that come out of Yasha’s mouth, she wants to stuff back inside the moment they leave. “None of us do. We know you well enough by now to know you’re coming back”

“Oh,” Yasha says. “Well then.”

It still stings, a little. A lot, actually. This assumption that she’s suspended in place, that she’s adhered herself to one group of people. It’s an itch that digs right under her skin, a little off, a little irritating. Not enough to fester. Just enough to draw blood.

“I don’t. Mean to,” Yasha says. It’s hard to breathe and talk at the same time. Yasha stares up at the sun as it peeks through the tree branches, burning itself against her pale stretch of skin. Tomorrow, it’s going to be peeling, she just knows it. The sun had never shone so bright in Xhorhas. “The leaving.”

“Oh, I know,” Molly says. He doesn’t open his eyes, but he does reach over to pat her arm. “You don’t need to apologise for being yourself, Yasha. We’ll love you no matter what.”

It’s almost a fist to the gut, hearing that. But nice. The pain means that it’s real.

…

…

“I have to go,” Yasha says, eyes on the storm.

“ _What_?” Nott says, teeth bared. There’s rain everywhere. It lashes against the ground in curved whips, slicing through the soft loam and eating away stretches of the old bark. They’ve managed to take some shelter against the larger trees, but it’s not going to last them through the storm. Sooner or later, they’re going to have to move. “ _Now_?”

There’s a tugging, again – in the pit of her stomach, at the back of her neck. She tries to breathe past it, but the weight is intense enough to leave her lungs aching. Yasha closes her eyes and lets the rain sink into her skin, as far as it can go. It mingles with the blood in her veins and washes everything else away.

The storm obscures their stalkers. They hadn’t seen them for the last few hours before the storm hit, but there’s only one road from here to their destination, and they certainly hadn’t bothered to conceal their attentions (though poor Fjord had certainly made a last-ditch effort). One, two, three – none of them could tell, as far as their perception went. Whoever it was, they were always there, just out of reach.

Beau ducks over to where Yasha is hunched over, back to the wind. She ducks out between the trees and it buffeted backwards a few steps, keeping as low to the ground as she can. When she comes within grabbing distance, Yasha reaches out and pulls her into the small alcove where she’s wedged beside Nott.

“This isn’t working!” Beau yells, right into Yasha’s ear. “We’re going to have to keep moving!”

Yasha tries to say something, but it sticks in her throat. No matter how hard she tries, talking to Beau is always twice as hard as talking to a normal person. With Yasha, she difficulty level had maxed out long ago, and she’s taken to improvising when the situation calls for it. Molly is no help. Every time she tries to bring it up, he won’t stop laughing at her.

“Yasha’s gone crazy!” Nott shrieks. “She can’t leave now!”

Beau glances sharply up into Yasha’s eyes. She’s pressed up to Yasha as close as she can get, one arm pushing against the tree trunk, the other trapping Yasha’s arm.

“You’re leaving again?” she says, almost too quietly for Yasha to hear.

“If I go,” Yasha says. “The storm will follow.”

She’s happy with that sentence, if only just. At the very least, she’d managed to complete it.

“Now?” Beau says.

“You can’t go _now_!” Nott yells, whacking Yasha’s knee. “You only just got back!”

It’s not Yasha’s injured knee, thankfully. They haven’t managed to rest up properly after their last fight, and Yasha can still feel her wounds settling in. Jester had gotten a few good spells in on everyone, but considering the rush, that had been a patch-job at best.

The words are phantom on Yasha’s tongue. _I’m sorry_. It’s an empty balm at best, because Yasha can’t really be sorry, not the way other people need her to be. Apologies imply some act of seeking redemption – there’s a promise, implicit, to not repeat the same mistakes. And this, Yasha leaving, this could never be a mistake. Hard, yes. A mistake, never. Yasha will follow the Stormlord to the ends of the earth, if that is what He desires.

For Molly, she had tried. For the circus, for the people who had given her so much, she had tried. They had been a home to her when the world had been ripped of fits axis and been left spinning. But she can’t apologise for following her god across the storm, because He had saved her, and she will never be able to repay that debt.

“I’ll be back,” she says, and that’s the best she can do. _I’ll be back. I’ll try as hard as I can. I won’t die. I won’t be an empty thing at the end of a rope. I’ll be back, I’ll be back, I’ll be back._

Nott kicks her again.

“We’re in the _middle_ of an _ambush!_ ”

Yasha doesn’t look away from Beau.

Beau blows out a long breathe into Yasha’s collarbone, grip tightening on Yasha’s forearm. “Alright then,” she says, and Yasha goes.

…

…

Travelling alone is vastly different to travelling with companions.

It is a lot lonelier. It is a lot easier. It is also, in so many different ways, a lot fucking harder.

“That’ll be five gold,” the bandit says, smile polished and teeth chipped. He holds out his hands patiently, eyes never leaving the hilt of Yasha’s sword.

“No,” Yasha says.

“I’m not sure you quite understand your situation,” the bandit says. “There are seven of us. There is one of you. Five gold is our toll pass. If you’d like, I can increase the fee.”

Yasha mentally runs through her list of pre-prepared responses. None of them really fit the situation. _Move_ is an easy one, but she doesn’t think that’s going to work this time. Yasha needs to get across this bridge. It’s the only one for the next day and a half’s journey, and by then the river in the gorge has carved around itself in the opposite direction of where she wants to go. The pull in her gut is going _north, north, north_ , and so north, north, north Yasha goes.

Or, she would be going, if these idiot assholes hadn’t popped out from their hiding places that moment she’d taken one step along the wooden slats.

She wishes, brightly, fiercely, that someone else was here right now. Yasha is very good at hitting things, but she doesn’t really want to start a fight of seven-to-one. Well, the seven that she can see – for all Yasha knows, there are more hidden behind the thick tree-cover that grows to either side of the gorge.

“I don’t have, uh, five gold,” she finally says.

“I’ll take the sword,” the bandit says.

Yasha stares at him for another long moment, processing. Behind him, his group of bandit-minions shift uneasily, crossbows at the ready. Yasha does not wear armour.

Beau would know what to do. Well, no, that’s a lie. She would insult the bandits until they attacked, and then be justified in beating them off with her stick. Nott would run away, dragging Caleb right along after her. Jester would…Yasha honestly doesn’t know what Jester would do in this situation. Laugh, maybe. Molly would probably pay them _ten_ gold.

Fjord. Fjord is a good model. What would Fjord do?

Yasha unslings her sword. “Well, alright,” she says.

The bandit’s eyes light up. “Really?” he says, just as Yasha swings for his head.

…

…

Molly asks her about it, once, in his own roundabout way.

Yasha is packing this time, which is a rarity in itself. Yasha doesn’t usually have enough warning to pack up any of her belongings. The call comes, and she either answers it or she doesn’t. Yasha always answers.

She and Yuli have come to an agreement. Yuli will pack and store Yasha’s things until Yasha returns, and Yasha will take requests on the kinds of beatings she gives out when audience members get a little…unwisely motivated…upon seeing so much bared skin. It’s almost embarrassing, the number of times Yasha has caught someone trying to sneak into the sisters’ shared tent. Yuli is very creative when properly riled.

But this time, Yasha is packing up her things, because Yasha does not intend to return.

“You’ll be safe?”

“I’ll try to be,” Yasha says, stuffing her spare clothing inside a small bag. There’s nothing much she owns of importance, nothing she doesn’t keep on her person at all times. Her book is safely stored away. Everything that matters is dry, and out of blood-splatter range.

“Do you have enough food?”

Yasha glances up. Molly is hovering. His eyes dart around Yasha’s cleared-out sleeping area of the last few days, focusing on nothing. His fingers trace the outline of his swords absently, twitching along the handles. It’s the most unsettled Yasha has ever seen him.

“I can protect myself, Molly,” Yasha says.

“I know,” Molly says. “You’re the strongest person I know. Of course you’ll be fine.”

It’s so easy, getting attached. There’s a ghost pain in the back of her throat, freezing her vocal chords and staying her tongue. _I’m not here for attachments_ , she tells herself, and it’s a hollow thing inside of her. There is so much that Yasha needs to do.

This time is different, and it’s not because Yasha doesn’t want to come back. It’s too easy to fit in, here. So what if she’s tall? So what if she’s striking? Compared to the lunatics she spends time with, she’s the least interesting thing in these tents. It’s a balm. That anonymity, it’s a balm, and it’s so addictive. Yasha leaves, and it’s a slap of cold water against her face. She can’t keep this up.

Molly knows something’s off, but he doesn’t say anything unusual, just says, “See you when you get back.”

Yasha just nods and doesn’t say anything.

…

…

(Yasha follows the tug, and at her next destination, the circus is there waiting for her.

Somewhere else, the Stormlord is laughing at her).

…

…

The first time Beau kisses Yasha, they’re lying in waist-high grass and there’s fire splitting the sky into two pieces.

“Keep breathing,” Beau says. She’s lying half on-top of Yasha, arms braced to either side of Yasha’s head, faces mere centimetres apart. “C’mon, don’t go away like this.”

Yasha tries to say – she doesn’t know. Yasha doesn’t know what she wants to say. But she can’t say it, whatever _it_ is, because there’s something lodged hard and cold into the side of her gut. Maybe she wants to say, _I don’t want to leave._ Maybe she wants to say, _I’m sorry_ , and she’ll mean it this time.

Beau kisses her, and it’s brief and bloody and it’s everything. Everything. There is a scream in the distance, and Beau pulls back to look over the grass. Another blast of fire ripples out towards the bleeding sun. Yasha stares at the sky and she wishes for rain.

“ _Jester_!” Beau roars, and everything fogs over grey.

…

…

Yasha leaves, and comes back. Leaves, and comes back.

That’s the thing she’s become so good at, the in-between spaces between companionship and true loneliness. Yasha lives in the echo of her own existence. Sometimes, it’s hard to believe that she exists. There’s a storm raging in her heart and lightning running through her veins. There’s nothing less real than that.

But she comes back. Yasha leaves, and she comes back, and she comes back, and she comes back. Always, forever – no matter how far she goes, there’s a tug in her gut that will always draw her back.

…

…

**Author's Note:**

> So, like. My top surgery consultation didn’t go well. So I wrote Yasha as a bit of a pick-me-up. I swear to god, I’m going to update "running with knives" soon, but like. Catharsis, man. I really need it right now. 
> 
> I'm thinking of doing a follow-up from Beau's perspective, but we'll see, haha. 
> 
> Come say hi on tumblr!


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